


The True Inverts

by lexicale



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 06:11:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexicale/pseuds/lexicale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen's first mateship didn't turn out so well -- his second is a whole different story, though.</p><p>beta!Jensen and omega!Jared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The True Inverts

Jensen woke up on a Saturday morning with no where to be and nothing to do, and it was possibly the best damned feeling in the world. He blinked slowly, the ceiling coming into focus unsteadily, still and stationary above his head and splattered with shafts of light, stretching off over the white paint and to the corners of their room. The house had a stillness about it, something left over from the night, but not shrouded and dark: a body waiting to rise, and after the work week he’d had, Jensen was grateful.

Outside of the house there were birds twittering, the spring having come late this year but finally having arrived and the air was warming up. Earlier that week the trees had begun to bloom, all white and pink blossoms up and down their street and their neighbors out mowing their lawns, leaving trails of green in their wake. Jensen had never been a cold weather person. He’d always been happy when spring came in, bringing back the sun and the light and the ability to go outside again. He liked going out on walks, making his way along hiking trails, liked being _outside,_ and the winter was prohibitive of that. Besides the fact that he _hated_ being cold.

He smiled a little to himself, though, thinking of his mate standing outside for the first snowfall, watching each flake swish down slowly, his face alight and smiling, cheeks wind reddened and dimpled and perfect, and maybe Jared could eventually change his mind on winter.

Jared went _stupid_ for things like mittens and mugs of hot chocolate, fires burning in fireplaces and colorful lights strung about in bushes.

Next to Jensen in the bed, said mate was stirring, but only reluctantly.

“Jared,” Jensen said, with no destination in mind, turning slowly to face the omega. Jared looked completely tuckered out, only just having finished up his first heat of the year, a long week of very little rest and even less sleep and whole host of other unpleasantness. It always left him exhausted, and Jensen’s heart went out to him. Betas didn’t go through heat -- it was something that Jensen could only observe from the outside. 

He reached out, smoothing a hand over Jared’s shoulderblade, feeling the warm stretch of skin below his palm.

“How you doing?” he asked, voice tender and morning soft.

The omega lifted his head from the pillow, lying on his stomach and Jensen could see a little drool coming out of one side of his mouth.

“Mmn,” Jared replied articulately, smacking his lips together before letting his head collapse back down to the pillow -- and by the way he made a face and lifted it again, back down into the pool of saliva.

Jensen chuckled.

“You alright there?” he asked, arching a brow.

“Something died in my mouth,” Jared replied sullenly.

“I hear they have toothbrushes for that.”

Jared made a petulant noise, half whine half groan, and he curled up again, this time closer to Jensen.

“Sure you’re okay?” Jensen queried, arms moving out and around Jared, and his voice was more serious this time. Jared’s body felt whole and safe -- warm and unhurt in his arms, but Jensen still worried anyways. Betas mother-henned by nature, but Jensen had been told he was particularly bad about it. His own mother had always said he could be a bit overbearing.

Turned out, having an omega mate, that wasn’t a bad thing.

“M’fine,” Jared grunted, pressing his nose into the crook of Jensen’s neck, and Jensen smiled to himself. This was another benefit: Jared was intensely tactile, and Jensen wouldn’t lie -- he loved it.

People weren’t always the best with them. The fact that they’d chosen a mateship that didn’t involve an alpha often rubbed people the wrong way, especially when fertility rates were going down. Jensen had pointed out that not only had he already _had_ a child, he and Jared planned to have children of their own in the future, through a donor, but that never made the scowls lessen.

It wasn’t about children, and Jensen knew that. It was about everything else.

\-----

Jensen had gotten married young.

He’d met Jeff straight out of college and fallen head first for the older alpha. At the time he’d thought that was romantic. It was fast and hot and impetuous and it was going to last forever. They’d married and mated in less than six months and honeymooned in Panama, and they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. Jensen had been certain, every night they spent together, bodies arched together and touching everywhere, breathless moans and even more desperate hissed affections, that he could never love anyone more.

That the drowning feeling of being completely head over heels would never fade.

It did, of course, but not right away. Jeff was a great guy and an even greater father -- he’d proved that well enough when Jensen had ended up knocked up before their first anniversary. Jeff had been ecstatic. Jensen...not so much.

It had been his first wake up call.

It wasn’t that he didn’t _want_ to have kids. He did. He always had. He’d just thought he’d have more _time_ first. He was going to graduate and get a job and work in his career. He was going to make his mark and settle down and get the lay of the land. His own mother had had him straight out of marriage, nothing more than a brief accounting desk job under his belt before he’d ended up popping out kids.

Of course, that was how it was for betas back then. Jensen had always felt he had more options.

It wasn’t that he regretted the pregnancy, and he’d never regretted his daughter. She was amazing and Jensen adored her. It was just that he’d regretted the timing. And it hadn’t taken long for that regret to become something more like resentment.

Jeff was older than him by more than ten years, living in a different phase of life, and while Jensen wanted to get out there and make his mark, Jeff had already done so. Jeff was ready to settle down, to make a family. He was ready to live a slower life, to get some big house out in the country and have a big yard and a dog and rake leaves. He was ready to be a father.

By the time things came to their inevitable conclusion, Jensen had blamed his husband for everything. It hadn’t been right, or fair, but Jeff was the easy target. He was a very distinct _someone_ that Jensen could blame for his life not going the way he’d planned, and it hadn’t been Jeff’s fault, but that hadn’t mattered back then. Jeff had ended up with primary custody and Jensen had ended up four years out of college without a job history and no idea what the hell he was going to do.

It was ironic, and only a _little_ funny, Jensen could admit, that three years later he’d be in the exact same place as Jeff, meeting someone new.

Jared had never gone to college. It wasn’t as if omegas couldn’t get into school or weren’t given jobs of prominence, omega and betas rights having progressed significantly in the past sixty years, and in Jensen’s progressive hometown, Jared would have ended up applying to colleges with all the betas and alphas at the end of high school. Turned out that the middle of nowhere Oklahoma felt differently -- at least, how Jared told it.

“Get your hands off of me!” had been the first thing Jensen had heard his mate say.

The beta was at the bar in the middle of the afternoon(always a good sign) on a Sunday, sipping delicately at a simple glass of scotch as he absently watched the game when he heard the shout. It came from just outside the open door, sunlight streaming in from the street and it wasn’t loud enough to attract everyone’s attention, not all the alphas over by the pool table, but Jensen was at the end of the bar closest to the door.

He’d come for a little peace -- for the pleasant rumble of low voices murmuring in the background, the knowledge that he was surrounded by people and not alone. His apartment had seemed to vast, too empty to stay in that day, the weekend after his time with Carrie. Jensen had gotten over himself eventually, figured out that it wasn’t Jeff’s fault -- okay, it was _both_ their faults, rushing headlong into something they hadn’t fully scoped out, headlong into something without even discussing their desires for the future -- and his relationship with his ex and his ex’s mate was pretty good these days. Carrie, though, was going through a rebellious phase, getting close to entering those preteen years, and she was all exasperation and rolling eyes but Jensen didn’t care. He loved the time with his daughter in a way he hadn’t when he was younger.

And now he was thirty two and exactly where Jeff had been ten years ago. Older, alone, and ready for something more than his weekly grind. Something more than the job he loved but found emptier these days -- he wanted the ability to _share_ it with someone.

He hadn’t expected to meet that someone at Milligan’s at three PM on a Sunday afternoon.

“Get back in the car, Jared,” a voice just outside the door growled and Jensen had looked up from his drink.

“I said get your hands off of me!”

“Christ almighty -- do you _try_ to be difficult? Do you practice at it or something?”

“Well, you’re such a quality _asshole_ I figured I had to pick up a hobby!”

Jensen smirked a little at that.

But his smirk dropped away when he heard a solid thump, and he put the glass back down on the bar, pushing himself off of his stool.

“Careful Jensen,” Michael, behind the bar, warned, cleaning off the beer glasses. “Not your business.”

“It should be _everyone’s_ business,” Jensen replied, simple as that -- besides, betas stuck together. They had to. He walked over to the door, sticking his head out it. 

There were two men on the sidewalk, one tall and burly and the other even _taller_ but thin, skinny even, like a willow. He had warm chestnut hair that curled around his neck and was wearing a plaid long sleeved shirt rolled up to the elbows. One of his wrists was being held by the burly guy. 

The scene didn’t _look_ like anyone had been recently punched, but Jensen didn’t want to take any chances.

“What’s going on here?” he asked in his best assertive voice. He didn’t have to scent the more aggressive looking man to know that he was an alpha -- it was written all over his face. Jensen was a beta but that didn’t make him a push over. It was harder to get alphas to take him seriously, sure, but he was used to pressing the issue.

“None of your business,” the alpha said, and the taller one yanked his hand away.

“Leave me alone, Todd,” he said, and Jensen remembered vaguely him being called Jared.

“Just get in the car!” the alpha tried again, this time sounding a little desperate, and he gestured to his vehicle. Jared shook his head.

“Last time: _no.”_ Jared was holding his wrist in his other hand and Jensen wondered how hard it had been gripped. He frowned and moved out of the doorway to go and stand beside Jared

The alpha glanced between the two of them, eyes flicking back and forth for a few tense seconds, but whatever he was looking for he seemed to find, or at least figured it’d be more trouble than it was worth, when he made a sound of frustration and turned to stalk away. He was growling and cursing as he moved around the car, but he didn’t say anything else when he got in and started the engine, peeling out from the curve.

“...thanks,” Jared said, after a pause, the two of them watching the short blue car speeding away. Jensen glanced over at the sound of the other man’s voice, and for the first time caught his scent: omega, not a beta at all.

“You alright?” he asked, gesturing to Jared’s wrist. The omega looked down at where he was still holding the delicate bone, but when he took his hand away, Jensen was relieved to see no bruising or marks.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jared dismissed softly, rueful smile on his lips.

“You sure? I heard a--... There was a noise. I heard in the bar.” He wasn’t sure how to ask if the alpha had hit him.

“He kicked the car,” Jared huffed, shaking his head. “He’s gonna be pissed later when he sees the dent.”

“If he was hurting you--”

“No.” Jared’s voice was firm, certain, but not mad. Not defensive. He turned to look down at Jensen. “Todd was an ass, but he wasn’t _that_ kind of ass. I’m pretty stupid, and I have pretty awful taste in alphas, but I know how to get out of dodge, if I need to.”

Jensen let out a breath of relief, glad, at least, that whatever the whole thing had been about, that Jared was okay. Betas and omegas didn’t tend to get along -- saw each other as competition -- and Jensen had played that game in high school, but he was over it. He was nearly thirty and uninterested in games.

“Who was that guy anyways?” Jensen asked, aware that it wasn’t his business but involved now, and not particularly wanting Jared to go yet for some reason. Maybe because this was the most social interaction he’d had since his daughter had gone back to her dad.

“A mistake,” Jared shrugged, casual as that, glancing back towards the bar behind them. “Buy me a drink?” he asked with a bare smirk, strange and forward for an omega and it made Jensen chuckle.

What the hell. He had cash. 

He shrugged.

“Sure.”

\-----

Jared had had no shame in spilling his entire life story over two pints of beer, his large hands gesturing broadly as he spoke, talking about growing up in a trailer park in some podunk town, with some podunk school and podunk kids that drove him nuts and his determination to get away. Jensen was never quite sure why Jared had picked St. Louis of all places but he got the impression that it had been less about picking and more about just going wherever the going was good.

Jared had moved from alpha to alpha, dating a string of losers but losers with cars or destinations in mind, and that was all that had really mattered.

The both of them had only ever been with alphas, had only ever really been attracted to alphas, and it had taken a full year of friendship and denial before they’d ended up on Jensen’s couch making out. It had been a shock to the both of them, neither one knowing quite what to do, so used to relying on instinct, used to an alpha also following theirs and taking the lead. It had been something wholly different to be with an omega, when it came to that.

Jensen had never been _inside_ of someone before, and the experience had been something unexpectedly moving. Their relationship felt different, Jensen felt different, _powerful,_ to realize that he was helping someone. Looking after someone. That Jared needed him -- not necessarily because he was an omega but because he was younger and going through so much of the same crap that Jensen had gone through at his age.

They’d decided to take it slow.

But slow wasn’t bad. Slow was better. Slow was good.

They hadn’t entered their mateship until Jared was twenty five, though he had still been working on finishing up his Teacher’s Certificate at the time. Jensen’s work had been going well enough that he could do it more independently, didn’t have to spend as many hours packed into an office working through details with a dozen other underlings like him, and when they’d had the money, they’d found a house.

It wasn’t easy. People judged them, of course. Jared’s family hadn’t had much contact with him since he’d left home, but he’d said that was pretty normal, that they’d never been close, so there wasn’t much drama there, but Jensen’s family struggled with it. They tried to be positive, tried to be welcoming, but Jensen could see the slight strain at the edges of his mother’s smile and the confused furrow on his father’s brow. Jensen hadn’t even bothered to bring it up with them that he and Jared had been talking kids -- been discussing what they’d look for in a donor, been talking about which one of them would carry.

“Why’re you up so early?” Jared whined into his chest, all floppy and limp and Jensen blinked a few times as the words drew him from his thoughts.

“Jared, it’s not early. It’s almost ten.”

“That’s early for a Saturday.”

“You’re only tired from your heat,” Jensen chided but gently, rubbing his hands up and down his mate’s back. He teased, but he was sympathetic -- after all, he didn’t have to go through all of that. “You know, you could just lay around today, get your energy back?”

“Can’t,” Jared sighed, shifting back to lay against their pillows, so they could talk face to face. “I gotta catch up on work from the last week. The substitute sent me over the kids’ tests and I really need to get grading. I want to be back on Monday.”

“They’ll let you have another couple of days off,” Jensen reminded.

“I know.” Jared smiled and rolled onto his side. He reached out, brushing a hand against Jensen’s jaw. “I _like_ my job. And I was lucky to get it. I wanna be back with the kids by Monday.”

Jensen knew all of that was true -- but he also knew the other, unspoken reason as well: Jared had gotten some flack for teaching as an omega dating a beta. Their unconventional relationship bled over into things like that. Even though there were other omegas hired at the school and taking leave for heats was regularly handled, some parents had complained last time about Jared being ‘away too long.’ It didn’t have anything to do with him being an omega, of course.

Jensen knew that the school had his mate’s back, but that didn’t mean they could always protect him. Jared had to be extra careful -- and Jensen hated that he had to be. He let out a long breath.

“Okay, then you’re going to have to get up I guess,” he said, and smirked when his mate groaned.

“Don’t put it like that...”

“Well, I already offered to let you stay in bed and you turned that down.”

“Yes, but at that point, getting out of bed was a hypothetical.”

Jensen snorted, but he didn’t have a chance to snark anything in response. Jared took the opportunity to roll into him, to spread himself over Jensen and bring their mouths together, long fingers spread out like cobwebs over Jensen’s cheek. Jared’s lips were warm and a little chapped from sleep and his breath slightly brackish, but Jensen pulled him in anyways, more than eager to.

His hands smoothed up Jared’s back, feeling the heat of his bed warmed skin and the glow of the morning sun smoothing over them both, laying in geometric patterns across the sheets. It felt lazy and warm and good and Jensen had no desire to leave it any time soon. 

Ten years ago he’d never have imagined himself here: in a large, king sized bed, lazing around on a Saturday morning with his omega mate in their house in the suburbs. After the divorce he never thought he’d be content again, never thought he’d be able to to move around without that baggage hanging over him. After the disaster of his first pregnancy, never thought he’d be looking at another, whether him or his mate, and feeling excited, feeling anticipatory. He’d thought that this kind of thing was out of his reach, and he could only be glad that Jared had proved his pessimism wrong.

It was life.

It was life moving forward, and it was the first time that Jensen felt like it was going the same pace as he was.


End file.
